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by Wyatt Ronan •
The Texas House voted to pass TX HB 25, discriminatory legislation aimed at banning transgender youth from participating in sports alongside their peers. The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration. A similar prohibition on transgender youth participating in sports has already passed the Senate during each of the 3 previous sessions this year, and HB 25 is also expected to pass quickly. Once the Senate approves TX HB 25, the legislation will head to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk. The Governor has placed an anti-trans sports measure on the agenda for all three special sessions and has publicly stated he will sign the bill.
Similar legislation was considered by the House during the regular legislative session and the first two special sessions. Because passage through the traditional committee of jurisdiction, the House Public Education Committee, could not be assured, this session the bill was routed through the Committee on Constitutional Rights and Remedies, a committee created by the Texas House Speaker in July expressly to address priority special session bills.
During each of the four sessions this year, the Human Rights Campaign joined coalition partners including the Transgender Equality Network of Texas, Equality Texas, ACLU of Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Lambda Legal, and others to oppose these measures. After HB 25’s House passage, Human Rights Campaign Texas State Director Rebecca Marques said:
“Texas legislators seem to take pride in passing discriminatory bills without any concern for the impact on Texans and the state’s growing negative national reputation. This legislation and the debate around it have already had a negative real life impact on transgender youth, impacting mental health and perpetuating negative stereotypes and discrimination against them. Transgender young people deserve the opportunity to play sports with their friends like any kid. Texas legislators are putting the second-largest LGBTQ+ population in the country at significant health and safety risk.
Radical policies like the anti-transgender sports ban bill that target children for no reason other than to score political points, making the state less safe and desirable for families to live and work, putting businesses in the state at a competitive disadvantage. Rather than focusing on urgent needs for Texans like fixing the fragile, failing electrical grid during three special sessions, the legislature was hellbent on advancing a discriminatory and harmful agenda just to appease their primary base.”
Texas transgender young people like 12-year old Adelyn and 11-year old Libby Gonzales and their families have spoken out against this dangerous legislation, telling their stories and speaking to the harms these bills would pose to them directly if enacted.
In Texas and in states across the country, legislators across the country have failed to provide examples of issues in their states to attempt to justify these attacks on transgender youth, laying bare the reality that they are fueled by discrimination and not supported by fact. Collegiate and professional sports organizations have had trans-inclusive policies for years without incident.
Nationwide in 2021, 25 anti-LGBTQ bills having been enacted, including 13 specifically anti-transgender laws across 8 states. More than 280 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced across 33 states this session, including more than 130 specifically anti-transgender bills. Each of these marks has set a new record for anti-equality legislation being introduced and enacted in a single state legislative session since the Human Rights Campaign began tracking legislation.
Wide range of business and advocacy groups, athletes oppose anti-trans legislation
Trans equality is popular: Anti-transgender legislation is a low priority, even among Trump voters
A PBS/NPR/Marist poll states that 67% of Americans, including 66% of Republicans, oppose the anti-transgender sports ban legislation proliferating across 30 states.
In a 10-swing-state poll, including Texas, conducted by the Human Rights Campaign & Hart Research Group last fall:
Another more recent poll conducted by the Human Rights Campaign & Hart Research Group revealed that, with respect to transgender youth participation in sports, the public’s strong inclination is on the side of fairness and equality for transgender student athletes. 73% of voters agree that “sports are important in young people’s lives. Young transgender people should be allowed opportunities to participate in a way that is safe and comfortable for them.”
States that pass anti-transgender legislation suffer economic, legal, reputational harm
These bills are solutions in search of problems that are driven by national anti-LGBTQ groups, not local legislators or Texans’ concerns
These bills come from the same forces that drove previous anti-equality fights by pushing copycat bills across state houses — hateful anti-LGBTQ organizations like the Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom (designated by Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group), and Eagle Forum among others.
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